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If I wanted to make it myself, the holiday card is something I should have planned and started in July.

Here it is, nearly the eleventh hour and days before it needs to be in the mail. Do I really have time to create, print and address holiday cards. Or can I get by with a cheery, heartfelt email greeting.

Yet somehow, all this new technology at my fingertips makes me think I can pull this off.

I remember the family Christmas cards of years ago. The summer days squinting into the camera, as my Dad took the family picture with the sun at his back and in our eyes. I don't know whether family and friends subjected to those pictures across the country appreciated them or not, but I'm glad today to have that yearly chronicle of me, my brother, Jim, and sister, Virginia.

I'm taking a simpler route with my own card this year.

I've decided to start with a picture I took on a vacation to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan this summer. I found I could quickly alter it with an iPhone program called Paper Camera. This lets you quickly turn a photograph into a drawing, sketch, something called comic boom,

neon or others. I could quickly switch from one to the next to see which made the most of the colors and textures of this picture.

My picture of wild thimbleberries looked best in comic boom. So I saved the picture and then opened it in Keynote, a PowerPoint like presentation program. I selected a template with a black background, inserted the picture and changed the text, even turning part of the text a berry red. This all took less than 20 minutes.

From this point in Keynote, I could add animated effects or add additional slides even including family videos or a person video or audio greeting from me, if I want to email my card. Or export it as a pdf to print it on cards. When I did this I didn't like the way the text translated, so I dropped the text and added that in the photo program, (either an app or computer-based). It won't win any awards and I know I could have done better if I'd started earlier, but you likely have more tools and personal, meaningful pictures at your disposal than you realize.

I know our artist readers are much more organized than I and have some creative talents to share.

So go ahead, put me to shame and share what you've been creating for greetings any of these upcoming winter holidays.